From egg to chicken: Former egg producer reflects on way of life

For 30 years, Lydia and Pepper Marten raised and sold eggs from their farm southeast of Columbus. Today, 14 years after their last hen laid its last egg, Lydia still remembers parts of the business she’d just as soon forget.

Cleaning the chicken houses was one of those dreaded chores. Everything had to be scraped from under the cages into a holding tank, she said. When asked how often, she laughed.

By LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA
Of The Gazette Staff

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/01/04/build/business/30-eggs.inc

"Not as often as they should have been," she said.

"Pepper’s Eggs," once a staple in stores from Big Timber to Red Lodge, Billings to Bridger, represents one of the last of Montana’s family-owned egg operations. Todd Gahagan, bureau chief of Montana’s Milk and Egg Bureau, said such operations have fallen by the wayside for a variety of reasons.

"There never have been a great number of (larger) producers in Montana – maybe a dozen at any particular time," he said. "Some decided it wasn’t economically feasible. Some family-run operations, the kids decided they didn’t want to be involved in the business."

Egg money

The Martens got into the egg business as a way to augment their farm operation.

"People in farming were always desperate for more money," Lydia said. Pepper built the first chicken house in 1957 and filled it with 1,000 chickens.

"Everybody in Columbus, especially at the bank, said ‘You’re crazy’," she recalled. "But it turned out to be fairly successful for the time period it was in."

The Martens launched their business about the time Montana initiated the Gold Seal Program. The program was aimed at ensuring quality eggs.

"You couldn’t use the gold seal unless you were abiding by their rules," Lydia said. "If you had a gold seal, people could expect to get a decent dozen eggs."

While the early years were good, by the late 1980s, the Martens saw the writing on the wall. Between competition from large operations in the Midwest and the toll of increasing equipment repairs, they decided it was time to shut down.

"It wasn’t looking profitable anymore," Lydia said. "(Prices) hardly ever went up over the prices of the 1950s."

Like most ag operations, the Martens depended on their kids – and eventually their kids’ spouses – to help out. Clark Marten, their son, remembers the successes and struggles of the egg business.

Ups, downs

"There were lots of ups and downs, but the ups got shorter and shorter," he said.

In the 1960s, when the egg business was good, the Martens were able to pay cash for a two-ton truck, a tractor and several other large-ticket items, he said.

"After that, it went down to nothing," he said.

In 1969 they were getting 69 cents a dozen, he said. In 1989, they were getting 69 cents a dozen.

Clark also remembers the first time a box of cereal first cost the same as one dozen eggs.

"Before, eggs were many times higher," he said. "I came home and told mom and dad, ‘I can’t believe it, a box of cereal is the same as a dozen eggs’."

During the Martens’ three decades in business, they refined their operation until, Lydia said, "We did every operation from baby chicks to the grocery store."

Early on, they took the eggs to Billings in the back seat of their old Kaiser, she said. They dropped eggs off at Tony’s Market (now the home of Poet’s Street Market), a few other markets, offices and even bars.

"They sold eggs there (bars and offices) in cartons, just like in grocery stores," she said. "We used to stop and drop off eggs. We just had to find places to sell them."

As the Martens’ egg business prospered, they built another chicken house and two brooding houses. At the peak of their operation, they kept about 20,000 laying hens while they raised another 10,000 chicks in different stages of development.

"You never had them running down at once," she said.

The Martens’ operation, however, was small potatoes compared to Hager Brothers’ Eggs, Clark said. The Hager Brothers’ 100,000 laying chickens supplied the largest share of eggs throughout the Billings area.

"They were the ones we followed," he said.

From egg to chicken and chicken to egg, the Martens relied on automated systems to run their operation.

The process began with the eggs collected into carts, loaded on flats, two and one-half dozen at a time. A suction lifter would suck up the eggs from the flat and place them onto a belt that would take them through the "candling" process.

Candling eggs, still a step in any egg operation, consists of running eggs past a light to check for flaws in the eggs, such as cracks or blood spots. As the eggs were transported along the belt, they were automatically separated by weight, filled into cartons and pushed off onto a round table, Lydia said. Someone would then collect the eggs and place them into the cooler, where they were stored until it was time to load them onto a truck and deliver them to the grocery stores.

Starting out, the Martens purchased their laying hens. Eventually they decided they could save money by raising their own from chicks.

When the chicks were old enough to replace their "spent hens" – those over one year of age, whose productivity had begun to decline – it was time to rotate the chicks in and the hens out. The Martens advertised their spent hens at 100 hens for $25.

Lydia remembers people from all around coming to take advantage of the deal."It was hilarious," she said. "They’d just throw them in (the car). They drove out with chickens between them in the front seat."

What was left over from the Martens’ egg operation – the manure and even left over non-marketable eggs – went onto their fields.

"It raised wonderful crops," Lydia said. "It did a good job on our wheat."

Today, as she looks back, Lydia says their operation was probably "pretty primitive" – but maybe better – than many of the corporate-dominated operations of today.

When the Martens eventually decided to get out of the business, they sold their cages and some of the equipment to the Hutterites and to Howe’s Sunnyside Eggs north of Big Timber. "They still call us about some things, a motor or something," she said.

And even now, 14 years since they’ve been in the business, Martens’ eggs have not been forgotten.

"I still have people say, ‘I miss Pepper’s Eggs’," Lydia said.

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